Broadband News

Oodles of bandwidth once 21CN rolled out

Traffic shaping is something that some users detest whilst many people don't even notice it. Matt Beal, Chief Technical Officer for BT Wholesale has given an in depth interview to ZDnet.co.uk.

It appears Matt Beal is confident that the 21st Century Network, which will operate over IP and remove the ATM backhaul network that currently links exchanges and service providers together, will
negate the need for traffic shaping.

Users appear to be increasingly aware of congestion on their ADSL broadband connections, but it is often not clear if this is down to BT Wholesale or the broadband provider. The cost savings 21CN
will bring may allow BT Wholesale to provision more capacity at the exchanges to reduce the effects of contention, but the above prediction about no traffic shaping being needed should not be
interpreted to mean that no contention will be present in the 21CN network. Additionally traffic shaping may still be used by individual broadband providers to ensure that what it considers as 'core'
applications will still work efficiently at peak times.

Some applications such a video service including BT Vision will probably still need 'flagging' to reserve bandwidth and ensure quality of service. If this was not done on the wholesale network,
peak time video viewing may be as bad as listening to an AM radio with a broken aerial.

The subject of FTTx (Fibre to the cabinet or home) is raised again and it seems there is a feeling within BT that the requirements of allowing competitors equal access to a new fibre local loop is
not much of a motivation to spend money. Also companies across Europe that are rolling out fibre are criticised for creating a digital divide. In the case of France and Germany the fibre roll-outs
represent companies building new networks in countries that do not have extensive cable networks. Any new fibre network in the UK is immediately competing with Virgin Media who have a fibre/coax
hybrid network passing some 45% of households, which makes the chance of someone apart from BT building it almost zero.

Comments

The key bit in all that is "Additionally traffic shaping may still be used by individual broadband providers to ensure that what it considers as 'core' applications will still work efficiently at peak times."
Or in english ISPs are still gonna throttle you when you start taking the "P" word and leeching from a ftp or bittorrent 24/7 at 20 odd meg also "Some applications such a video service including BT Vision will probably still need 'flagging' to reserve bandwidth and ensure quality of service." to me just sounds like what providers do now, give priority to certain apps.

CARPETBURN

over 11 years ago

pfft, the reason why people are with BT's competitors is the very reason BT wont upgrade, if they stopped charging the earth for thier so called phat pipes etc.. causing ISPs to Cap and FUP thier connections, then people wont move to LLU, what a totally shortsighted company :(

_TRIaXOR_

over 11 years ago

One mans meat.... Why is a large ftp download at a decent speed considered less acceptable than "vision" type services? sounds like those of us who just want to use the net for what we have always used it for could be pushed into second place behind the whizzy new services that are coming to a wallet near you soon! That explains the FUP bull that many have been suffering lately. Shame BT cant sort out contended exchanges before the pigopolists start trying to cram their new monetising services down the already crowded pipes!

warweezil

over 11 years ago

No, in English they're going to prioritise heavy-bandwidth apps like voice and video over low-bandwidth but even more quality dependent things like, oh, games.

So I'll still be prefering a "slow" "business" service which dosn't use QoS. I'd rather have 1MBit and 50 ping than 10MBit and 450.